2 Hot Lines Were Cold When Crisis Flared : Health care: Suicidal woman’s futile attempt to get help before she was killed by officer exposes a glaring deficiency.

The disclosure that a suicidal woman tried two crisis hot-line numbers without getting an answer less than an hour before she was shot to death by a deputy sheriff last month points to a potentially serious problem in the county’s health care service, officials said Tuesday.

“We have had problems in the past of having hot-line numbers passed out for (organizations) that were no longer providing services, who had folded up their tents and gone away,” acknowledged Timothy P. Mullins, director of mental health services for the Orange County Health Care Agency. “It’s been an ongoing issue as far as what numbers you give out.”

But the problem reached perhaps its most tragic proportions on June 10 just before 10 p.m., when 43-year-old DeLoura Harrison, distraught over a divorce, dialed 911 in search of help.

A friendly Sheriff’s Department dispatcher gave her two suicide hot-line numbers. But Harrison called back a few minutes later, saying she had gotten no answer at either number, according to a partial transcript of the call released this week.

After about 20 minutes of discourse between the dispatcher and Harrison about the woman’s troubles and hopes, deputies had traced her call to the Hampton Inn on Oso Parkway in Mission Viejo. A resident of Florida, she was in town for a court hearing to finalize her divorce from her husband, who lives in Laguna Niguel.

The Sheriff’s Department says that after Harrison refused to let the deputies into the room, they got a pass key and entered to find the woman pointing a .25-caliber, semiautomatic handgun at one of the officers. The officer fired once, fatally wounding the woman. She was dead by 10:30 p.m.

The series of events has led to some speculation--and anger--over whether anything might have been different for Harrison if she had been able to get through to either of the suicide hot lines.

The victim’s father, Ralph H. Lewis of Gainesville, Fla., who has criticized the Sheriff’s Department’s handling of the case, said Tuesday that he “can’t believe that they had a hot line where you couldn’t get an answer. That absolutely blows my mind. I’ve checked on things like this since it happened, and here in Gainesville those lines are monitored 24 hours.”

Florence Borders, director of the first hot line that Harrison was given on the night of her death, says that her center, too, used to be staffed 24 hours a day. But that changed about a year ago, she said, when donations to the private, nonprofit Hotline Health Center Inc. in Orange dropped significantly.

“Sometimes we don’t have people 24 hours and we are currently trying to recruit volunteers,” Borders said. “We’re not on at nights right now. We’re only manned two nights a week.”

But even if Harrison had been able to reach her hot line that night, Borders suggested, “the same thing might have happened” because police would probably have been called to the room anyway.

Borders said Harrison showed certain “red flags”--she had been drinking, she had a gun and had been going through an emotional divorce. Borders said her 38 counselors, who handle a total of about 2,000 calls a month, are trained to contact authorities when they see such signs of potential danger.

And according to Mullins of the county’s mental health division, “once the authorities are called in, they by and large take it over” without interference or assistance from health-care professionals.

As for the second hot-line number that Harrison received from the 911 dispatcher on the night of her death, calls there went unanswered throughout the day Tuesday and it could not be determined what organization operated it.

Mullins conceded that the problem does not appear to be uncommon.

Just six months or so ago, he said, the leader of a human services group in South County called to complain about it, prompting Mullins’ office to review and update its listings of county crisis lines.

“She had tried five or six (lines) and of the five or six, only one was manned when she called, so she kicked it to me” to review, Mullins said.

County officials said that, even with the problem brought to their attention, there still appears to be no central point of reference for tracking hot-line numbers.

According to one private reference guide, there are more than 300 crisis hot lines, information and referral numbers in Orange County.

Asked where the 911 dispatchers get the hot-line numbers to which they refer upset callers, Mullins said, “I really don’t know.” And Sheriff’s Department officials were also unable to say Tuesday how those numbers are determined.

Mullins said he is uncertain how to avoid recurrences of Harrison’s hot-line experience.

“It’s an issue,” he said. “Hot lines come and go--and most of the hot lines that exist in this community and most communities are staffed by volunteers without a great amount of support behind them. So even with the greatest intentions, there are problems.”